As Stanford University's hub of environment and sustainability research, the Woods Institute for the Environment is the go-to place for collaboration across sectors and disciplines aimed at finding solutions to the most critical, complex environmental and sustainability challenges. How does the organization do it, and how does it manage the problems associated with interdisciplinary activism? In this university lecture, director Barton Thompson shares stories from the trenches.

Climate change, over-consumption of natural resources, and pollution are all contributing to the failing health of our planet, but what can we do to more effectively promote environmental sustainability? In this university podcast, Fabien Cousteau, the third generation to carry on the tradition of deep-ocean adventure and exploration originally pioneered by his grandfather more than half a century ago, offers some solutions. He spoke at the USRio+2.0 Conference at Stanford.

Dr. Moira Gunn talks about new vaccines for neglected diseases and about a handheld device which can detect disease on the spot with the CEOs from Inviragen and Opko Diagnostics, Dan Stinchcomb and David Steinmiller.

Messaging that makes meanings easier to understand leads people to recycle more. That's the conclusion of a study reported on by Canadian Scholar Kate White in this University podcast. White says that negative messages about the dangers of not recycling work best when paired with concrete action steps, showing how to recycle. White spoke at the Stanford Prosocial Briefing.

Our planet will reach nine billion people by 2050. Are we anywhere near ready to feed that many people? In this audio lecture, Dr. Ann Bartuska of the U.S. Department of Agriculture discussed the need to connect food, water, and energy technologies to address our need for sustainable agriculture. Dr. Bartuska spoke as part of the panel "Framing the Challenges: How Can Connection Technologies Support Sustainable Development?" at the USRio+2.0 Conference at Stanford University.

What does it mean to have a deeper, more geographic understanding of our changing world? Tamarat Belayneh says the answer can be found at the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI). Its missions is to organize and analyze geographic data to help land planners and resource managers make better use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The importance of such systems is increasingly recognized. ESRI's role is to train people to gather and apply GIS information in new ways.

ioBridge is a leading Internet of Things developer, working to help manufacturers, professionals, and the regular user to better automate and control devices. The company's founders, Hans Scharler and Jason Winters, discuss their work, reviewing their development process and protocols. They also discuss specific examples of user projects that are part of the ioBridge community.

In these segments, Moira first speaks with Vijay Vaitheeswaran, author of Need, Spped, and Greed, on how the new rules of innovation can transform businesses, propel Nations to greatness, and tame the world's most wicked problems. She then speaks with a delegation from the UK's Clean and Cool Mission.